Letters on Medicaid expansion, Obama, Leonard Pitts, climate change
Facts show Medicaid expansion helps state
Too often, opponents of Medicaid expansion – such as Jeff Glendening, state director of Americans for Prosperity (Jan. 12 Opinion) – point to the costs associated with expansion but fail to include the facts about how savings and economic growth offset those costs.
For instance, expanding KanCare would cost Kansas about $57.5 million in 2017, which is the only number opponents of expansion focus on. However, the cost of expansion would be offset by about $126.7 million in state savings and new revenue. Expanding KanCare would net the state $69.2 million, benefiting the state’s bottom line, creating jobs and improving the state’s health.
Glendening also highlights half-truths about other states that are benefiting from expansion. Rather than argue about statistics, let’s look at what governors are saying and doing to promote and protect their programs.
In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich said, “Thank God we expanded Medicaid, because that Medicaid money is helping to rehab people.” In a different interview, Kasich said, “Our hospitals needed Medicaid expansion. It has worked very well in this state.”
Like Kasich, Republican governors in Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada, Massachusetts and Arizona have urged Congress and the president-elect to protect Medicaid expansion in their states.
The facts show that expanding KanCare is good for Kansas.
David Jordan, Topeka
Executive Director, Alliance for a Healthy Kansas
Go away quietly
Farewell to President Obama. I will miss his mendacity. I will miss his tall tales about affordable health care. I will miss the chuckles he gave me every time he mentioned global warming. I will miss his stories about Iran, the stalwart nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, and how Palestine is a country.
Obama should have been a fisherman. His latest whopper is a doozy: that Hillary Clinton’s election got away because of the opposition’s collusion with Russians. Why would Russian President Vladimir Putin care? Shoot, the WikiLeaks information didn’t reveal anything new. Most of us already knew those things, and many still voted for her anyway.
Does Obama know that anyone can purchase Russian hackware if you know where to go?
Obama needs to go away quietly. He needs to take his pen and phone with him. Vacation in Hawaii. Read some history books and discover what happens to 95 percent of the people in countries that embrace his ideology. Relax while listening to some James Taylor CDs. Reminisce with some Columbia College buddies. Write a best-selling fiction novel. Maybe he can find out where the trillion-dollar stimulus money went.
Tom Oyler, Wichita
Fear of ideas
The Eagle deserves thanks for publishing diversity of opinion. It has been said that the stupidest prejudice is the fear of ideas.
Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. presents ideas that are well thought out and factual, necessary information for those of us who wish to read varying ideas as we make up our own informed choices. His Jan. 16 column noted “the ugliness, hatred and fear that have always undergirded so-called conservatism where race is concerned.” It occurs to me that the basis of this prejudice is that, very simply, some people’s ancestors got more sunlight. We are all human family.
My view of President Obama is that he is an excellent role model: well spoken, married only once, a lovely family, morally admirable and ethical, open to discussion without personal insults. He is what a president should be. I do not agree with everything he has done, but due to constant congressional opposition he has had limited options.
Compare this with the president-elect. “Res ipsa loquitur,” as the lawyers say, or “it speaks for itself.”
Alfred James, Bel Aire
Misleading defense
Ed Cross’ defense of the oil and gas industry is misleading (“Oil, gas essential,” Jan. 15 Letters to the Editor). His industry has a vested interest in maintaining our dependence on fossil fuels and debunking their role in causing climate change.
Wouldn’t it be better to learn about this issue from research by climate scientists, rather than misleading information provided by the fossil fuel industry? To do so, watch short videos (www.goo.gl/NPxuQG) by Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist, or read the 2014 summary for policymakers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To see the effects of climate change worldwide, watch Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Before the Flood.”
Options for addressing climate change need not be regulatory, such as the Clean Power Plan. The carbon fee and dividend plan is a market-based proposal designed to price fossil fuels to account for their health, environmental and economic costs. Transitioning to renewable energy would create jobs. More U.S. workers were employed in the solar industry than in the oil and gas industry in 2015.
President-elect Trump and the new 115th Congress would be short-sighted and irresponsible to pursue policies that continue to encourage the use of fossil fuels. America has the technological capability to transition to carbon-free energy, but so far has lacked the political will.
Helen Hands, Hays
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This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Letters on Medicaid expansion, Obama, Leonard Pitts, climate change."